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Zachariah Butler

M, #72448, b. 4 March 1773, d. 25 March 1815

Last Edited: 9 Nov 2014

Biography*: There is a story that he was from Scotland and landed at Wilmington, NC. Then he moved to Campbelltown (Now Fayetteville), NC.Later he bought a farm near Rcokfish bridge, NC and moved into it.

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Daniel Melvin , I

M, #72459, b. circa 1708, d. circa 1794

Last Edited: 8 Oct 2005

Biography*: The following article appeared in THE STATE Magazine, Sept. 1976by Lionel Melvin: "If Blackbeard was a cold-blooded murderer andscoundrel, as evidence by Hamilton Cochran's scholarly article (July and August editions), then the possibility of my existence may have hung by a thread. According to family tradition, my immigrant ancestor, Daniel Melvin, was a prisoner on Blackbeard's pirate ship when he arrived in America.

Born in Scotland in 1708, he was placed on a sailing ship from Skye to serve as cabin-boy when he was only nine years old. The ship was seized by Blackbeard; and the crew, including the cabin-boy, were taken as prisoners aboard the pirate ship. One night, when they drew in near the South Carolina coast, a seaman by the name of Tom Bones and one other seaman silently lowered an empty cask overboard, then they stripped off their clothes and followed, taking the boy, Daniel, with them. Bones and the boy succeeded in reaching land, but the third seaman drowned in the effort.

It seemed that strand of the beach where they found themselves was used as a highway and the nude man and boy were forced to hide in the bushes when travelers came along, but in time, a lone man on horseback approached and Bones, a Mason, stepped out in the open and gave a sign indicating that he was of that order. The stranger understood since he, also, was a Mason.Daniel and Bones were taken to the home of the stranger, outfitted with clothes, fed, and later given money to see them on their way.

Daniel wondered around until he arrived in the vicinity of what is nowFayetteville, N.C., where he was taken in by a couple who reared him to manhood. Eventually, at around the age of forty, he married Jane Thomas, daughter of an established family in Bladen County, and settled on a tract of land granted him in 1752 on the South side of South River. There Daniel and Jane reared their family of three boys and four girls. Daniel died around 1794 at a ripe old age of about eight-six and was buried on his own land. The gravesite is lost.

The story first came to me in Florida in 1931 from Mr. Gaston Sutton, an elderly relative who was living in the Carl Gables area. Mr. Sutton told me many other things about the family as if it had happened only yesterday, and when I asked him how he knew so much about them, he replied, "It came through my two grandmothers who were the daughters of Daniel Melvin." Many years afterwards I found very much the same account of this story in the published history of the Reeves family entitled, "Family Sketches," compiled by Le Roy Reeves. Still later I found the same in a published history of the Mercer family located in the North Carolina room of the Greensboro City Library."

John Thomas Freeman , Sr.

Note, Source: Mark Freeman - John Thomas Freeman served in the Confederate Army after the birth of his daughter Emily, in Co. "C" Capt. Brown's 7 Stars Mississippi Artillery. He was captured, but was paroled or escaped within days. His captor and he were both said to be Masons. He served until the end of the war, and received a pension in his old age from the State of Mississippi for his service. He was a planter, and he moved his family from Copiah Co., MS (Barlow community) to Franklin Co., MS (Hamburg, MS), where some descendants live in the area in 2002. Reunion of his descendants held 2nd Saturday in June almost every year in Hamburg. He owned a store, and his property was used for cotton farming. John Thomas Freeman died 23 June 1917, and is buried in Mt. Carmel Cemetery, located two miles east of Hamburg, MS. This town is not on the state-issued highway map in 1995, but is shown on most published atlas maps of Mississippi.